It's an art form with little margin for error - just ask any celebrity made to stand next to their own waxwork which barely has a passing resemblance.

But when artists get waxworks right, the results can be so stunning it's near impossible to tell them from real people.

The models created by Carole Feuerman are the latter, as they're so realistic that people sometimes think they're alive.

Is she real? Artist Carole Feuerman takes six painstaking months to create the stunningly lifelike sculptures

Carole, 50, spends a gruelling six months on the waxworks, with her hyper-realistic sculptures selling for as much as £250,000 each.

The Manhattan-based sculptor's collection includes several female model waxworks in swimming costumes or bikinis.

The grandmother-of-two said her waxworks are seen as so lifelike that viewers of her work often refer to the models as real people.

She said: 'My studio can take people by surprise, it is always littered with different body parts.'As my work is designed to look as realistic as possible, people often get a bit freaked out when they come in.

Larger than life: Part of the time consuming nature of creating the models is down to their large size

'When I am creating and painting a sculpture people refer to the work as 'it'.

'But when the piece is finished, people subconsciously start calling them 'him' or 'her' - they speak about my art as if they were real people.

'Even with people who have worked with me for years, and are used to my art, end up doing it.

'When designing a piece, I rarely base a sculpture purely on one person - most of my work will use the face of one model, the body of another and the arms and hands of a third.

Squint and she's real: Carole's lifelike models sell for up to £250,000 each

'I have sculptures that have been made up of body parts of five or six different people.'

Carole creates the amazing works by creating a mould, and making a resin cast out of liquid polyester, before using very fine sandpaper to refine the piece and to give the sculpture its lifelike skin.

She then spends weeks spraying hundreds of layers of skin-toned paint to the piece, attaching real human hair to finally bring it to life.

But as fears grew that the whale may have had to be put down, the eight-hour rescue attempt came to an end as the distressed creature was finally freed.

It is now heading back out into the North Sea to be reunited with his mother.

A spokesman for British Divers Marine Life Rescue: ‘We got a call at 8am this morning to say there was a Minke whale beached at Immingham Docks.

'At that moment in time it was facing towards the sea, but we successfully helped rotate it.

'Fire services began digging a trench to allow water underneath the whale and support it. The concern was that the tide would continue to drop and it would not be able to support its large weight, so we obviously needed to get it back to sea as soon as possible.

Rescue plan: Fire services dug a trench to help create a path deep enough to secure the whale's safe passage back to sea once the next high tide came in

'Thankfully, Minke whales can survive a bit longer than other whales. With good first aid and animal care the animal can survive for 12 hours.

'We have had our local co-ordinator there and a team of British Marine Life medics who worked very closely with the RSPCA, vets, Coastguard, fire services and Humber rescue to ensure the safe return of the whale to its mother.

'We are all just relieved the whale has been successfully reunited with his mother.'

A spokeswoman for Humber Coastguard said: 'The larger whale has not been seen for a while, so we believe that is also heading back out to sea.'

Monday, September 5, 2011

Appy cyclists

Swiss manufacturers will this week launch the futurist eJalopy GreenWheel - a bike with a revolutionary electric motor and loaded with sensors, apps, and internet connections.

Users can use wi-fi links to their smart phones to find their friends for them and then tap into GPS systems to find the best, quickest or most energy efficient route there.

They can also monitor their own performance, pulse and calories burned up - and send out challenges by SMS from the £3,000 bike to see if anyone can beat their personal bests.

And when the effort gets too much, riders can sit back and let the electric motor - built into the green coloured rear wheel hub - do all the work.

MTB Cycletech designer Butch Gaudy and computer expert Michael Lin said: "We wanted to make a quick, quiet and effortless bike that runs on a simple platform that would allow new functions and apps to be added."

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